The present invention relates to stacked microelectronic assemblies and methods of making such assemblies, and to components useful in such assemblies.
Semiconductor chips are commonly provided as individual, prepackaged units. A standard chip has a flat, rectangular body with a large front face having contacts connected to the internal circuitry of the chip. Each individual chip typically is mounted in a package which, in turn, is mounted on a circuit panel such as a printed circuit board and which connects the contacts of the chip to conductors of the circuit panel. In many conventional designs, the chip package occupies an area of the circuit panel considerably larger than the area of the chip itself.
As used in this disclosure with reference to a flat chip having a front face, the “area of the chip” should be understood as referring to the area of the front face. In “flip chip” designs, the front face of the chip confronts the face of a package substrate, i.e., the chip carrier, and the contacts on the chip are bonded directly to contacts of the chip carrier by solder balls or other connecting elements. In turn, the chip carrier can be bonded to a circuit panel through terminals overlying the front face of the chip. The “flip chip” design provides a relatively compact arrangement; each chip occupies an area of the circuit panel equal to or slightly larger than the area of the chip's front face, such as disclosed, for example, in certain embodiments of commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,148,265; 5,148,266; and 5,679,977, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Certain innovative mounting techniques offer compactness approaching or equal to that of conventional flip-chip bonding. Packages which can accommodate a single chip in an area of the circuit panel equal to or slightly larger than the area of the chip itself are commonly referred to as “chip-sized packages.”
Besides minimizing the planar area of the circuit panel occupied by microelectronic assembly, it is also desirable to produce a chip package that presents a low overall height or dimension perpendicular to the plane of the circuit panel. Such thin microelectronic packages allow for placement of a circuit panel having the packages mounted therein in close proximity to neighboring structures, thus reducing the overall size of the product incorporating the circuit panel.
Various proposals have been advanced for providing plural chips in a single package or module. In the conventional “multi-chip module,” the chips are mounted side-by-side on a single package substrate, which in turn can be mounted to the circuit panel. This approach offers only limited reduction in the aggregate area of the circuit panel occupied by the chips. The aggregate area is still greater than the total surface area of the individual chips in the module.
It has also been proposed to package plural chips in a “stack” arrangement, i.e., an arrangement where plural chips are placed one on top of another. In a stacked arrangement, several chips can be mounted in an area of the circuit panel that is less than the total area of the chips. Certain stacked chip arrangements are disclosed, for example, in certain embodiments of the aforementioned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,679,977; 5,148,265; and 5,347,159, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,033, also incorporated herein by reference, discloses an arrangement in which chips are stacked on top of another and interconnected with one another by conductors on so-called “wiring films” associated with the chips.
Despite the advances that have been made in multi-chip packages, there is still a need for improvements in order to minimize the size and improve the performance of such packages. These attributes of the present invention are achieved by the construction of the microelectronic assemblies as described hereinafter.